Hello I am returning to blogging after an elongated break to share this cracker of a cracker recipe with you all. At the start of lockdown between people stockpiling toilet paper and frantically baking banana bread another quarantine trend was born – making sourdough. I jumped on this bandwagon rather late in the game (I made my first loaf in June) as my mantra had been Focaccia > Sourdough but I am there now, starter in one hand and proving basket in the other.

Although the resulting bread is so delicious and the process exceedingly satisfying there is a down side, which is the vast amount of discard one accumulates from the daily feeding of the starter. I have not wanted to throw any of it out, in part as we like to avoid food waste in our household but also because bread flour is not cheap and you get through a lot of it! So having baked Izy Hossack’s discard brownies and banana bread (both of which I strongly recommend) I created the following sourdough cracker recipe. This efficiently uses up all sourdough discard you will amass in a week of feeding as they are so addictive so you will not be able to stop making and eating them. I have made three batches in one week and all crackers were eagerly consumed by my family!

I hope this is a useful recipe for fellow sourdough bakers. The crackers stay crisp for up to a week if kept in an airtight container and can be topped with any seasoning or flavour combinations that you enjoy. You could try sesame seeds, nutritional yeast, sumac and poppy seeds as variations – I like to go for sea salt or rosemary.

 

 

Prep time: 20 mins |Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plain flour

1/2 cup wholemeal flour

1 cup starter (100% hydration)

3tbsp milk

3 tbsp oil

1 tsp table salt

1 sprig rosemary, leaves finely chopped (optional)

2 tsp flakey sea salt (optional)

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 220C/ 200C Fan. Line two large baking trays with baking parchment.
2. Mix together the flours, starter, milk, 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tsp table salt until a shaggy dough forms. Tip it onto a clean surface top and knead it for 3- 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and a little springy. This is not the same as kneading to make bread as we are not looking for lots of gluten development.
3. Cut the dough into 4 even pieces and roll each piece out as thin as possible, 1 mm thickness. You can now either cut them out with pastry cutters, line these shapes up onto the baking trays and prick each shape with a fork. Or you can carefully transfer the sheet of rolled out dough onto the baking tray (and then break the crackers into shards after it has been cooked). N.B. As I have room for only two baking trays in the oven I do this process in two batches – so bake the first two of the sheets of dough, whilst rolling out the other two sheets. 
4. Brush the dough with olive oil and sprinkle over the rosemary and flakey salt and then use your fingers to lightly press these toppings into the dough. I usually do half with just sea salt and half with the rosemary as well. Bake the crackers in the oven for 10 minutes of until golden and crispy. They should make a snapping noise when broken in half.